His Least Favorite Hour
by twilightslittleangel
Summary: After a night of disappointing work, Bruce discovers he isn't alone in his troubles.


**I had half of this written already, so I finished if. I offer some depressing Avengers Fanfiction to tide you readers over until I writ's the sequel. I kind of have been on a 'How I Met Your Mother' binge, so the two in the morning thing... Im why we can't have nice things. **

**Party on! **

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Bruce sat on the stool, leaning over the smooth and glossy top of the counter. A pen was positioned to write quick, sloppy notes in a notebook that had seen better days. Disheveled hair, glasses perched on the tip of his nose while watchful eyes observed the little experiment he was doing. His button down shirt had creases and wrinkles in it, a chipped mug holding cold coffee sitting not too far from his hand. He watched intensely for a few moments before realizing that it had failed, and jotted down some lines on what didn't work.

Sitting up on his stool and throwing his pen on the notebook. It rolled off and dropped to the floor, where he let it stay. For a fleeting moment, he thought he had found a way to even temporarily cure his ailment, a way to stop it for months at a time. Sadly, the past month or two dedicated to this little idea that Bruce had, produced results at were only useful not to find out what didn't work. In the notebook there were a few notes that would help further his work on curing the problems, but it just wasn't enough for him. Running his hand through his hair, Bruce got up and wandered to the window and looked out at the skyline of New York.

A dark, starry sky kept careful guard of the bright and busy city. Cars honked angrily, the lights of Broadway lit up and dazzling anyone who passed by. Stark tower was still undergoing some final work, just making the outside look much more modern. Tony, although extravagant, had good taste when it came to exterior design. How late had Bruce let it get before he realized that all the work he was doing was pointless? Turning around, Bruce bent down and picked up the pen, before going off to his room. He would try to get regular again in eating and sleeping patterns. The clock on the wall softy ticked past the large number two.

The hallways were dark, team members sleeping in rooms with signs on the door. Tony thought it would be cute, but the rest of us thought it was sort of pointless. They never looked at them anyways. As he shuffled down the hall, Bruce couldn't help but drag hand against the wall, feeling the smooth and cool wall. He could hear Thor snoring away merrily, not a care in the world. Steve was in his room, door cracked. As Bruce neared his humble abode, he could hear low murmurs in the small kitchen that was on that floor. Instead of going to his bed and being unable to sleep, he decided to go see what was happening. Somewhere, a clock ticked and the long hand hopped past the over sized one.

Once arriving at the end of what felt like the longest hall, the scene in front of Bruce was unlike something he had ever gotten to observe. Tony, Clint and Natasha were sitting around the wooden table, sharing stories. No one was quarrelling, no mean jokes or jabs at someone else's chosen crime fighting style. It was just a peaceful get together, from what he could tell. Maybe it was time for Bruce to go to be, because he could just as well be hallucinating. But that's when Bruce was noticed by a puffy eyed Tony.

"How's the work going?" He asked as Nat and Clint exchanged looks. Bruce shrugged and pulled up a the last empty chair.

"Another dead end. Why are you up so late? Don't you too have to report to base in a few hours?" He asked, directing the last question towards his favorite master assassins.

"Can't sleep. Nightmares." Clint replied as Nat slid closer to him, her lips moving quickly and quietly at his ear, telling him something the rest couldn't know.

"I was telling them about my most recent one." Tony added. "In this particular nightmare Pepper had been tortured and killed. The imaginary killer put a twist on it though and sent me her head in the mail." Bruce knew what this was. Those two quiet ones and Tony could call this whatever they wanted to, but it was the post traumatic stress club. Superhero lives had such a dark underside, and these three definitely knew it.

"My last nightmare was so vivid, so lifelike I can't begin to describe it." Natasha whispered, her once tough exterior disintegrating. Clint wrapped a comforting arm around her.

"She has anxiety over our next mission. I'm the one who wakes up with her in the middle of the night because I still have bad dreams from the Loki incident." Everyone remembered that. How eventually he turned out to be the bad guy, the baddest one yet.

"Do you have anything to share, Bruce?" Tony vocalized in a tone similar to the man who lead Bruce's anger management class SHIELD had regulated. Calm, but with an air of superiority. That guy also gave Bruce the small bag of weed he kept under his mattress.

"When I close my eyes me and the other guy are both present. Some might call it schizophrenia, but honestly, it's a bitch." He sighed, running his hands through his hair. This conversation carried on in sporadic bursts, but was for the most part stagnant. There was a large clock hanging above the sink in that very room, and the large hand had just swung over the number six.

Time passed, that clock ticking along at a uniform pace. Clint and Natasha would whisper back and forth occasionally. A tear rolled down Natasha's cheek, her hand quickly wiping it away. She wouldn't let them see her cry. It made Bruce and Tony both feel rather awkward, being third and fourth wheels in that situation. The silence was broken by Clint's strong voice announcing they were going to bed.

"We have to go try to get some sleep. We leave in a few hours." He spoke with certain gentility, as if he and Natasha didn't want to get into a row in front of the other members of the PTSD midnight party. Tony left not long after, when Pepper realized he was gone and yelled for him. That left Bruce alone at the table, to embrace the empty chairs filled with ghosts.

Feeling it was all pointless now, that he should give in and sleep, Bruce shuffled down the hallway. He paused at Thor's door, listening to the giant beast of a man snore away happily. Continuing on, Brice reached his room and nudged the door open. Stripping to his underwear, he collapsed on his bed and glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It read a quarter to three, which meant he was in the hopeless hour. Nothing ever good happened after two in the morning, and Bruce knew that.

Flipping away from the clock, he started to fall into a slumber, both sides of him keeping him up. He tossed and turned, before admitting defeat. Bruce kept a bottle of sleep aids with him, and took a few. In what felt like forever, they finally kicked in, and the scientist fell asleep.

The red numbers on his alarm clock read 3am.


End file.
